The Choral Society of Pensacola’s opens its eighty-second season with “Musica Hispanica”

PENSACOLA, Fla.—The Choral Society of Pensacola features works spiced with the flavors of Spain and Latin America in Musica Hispanica, the opening concert of its eighty-second season and one of the opening events of this year’s Foo Foo Fest. It’s set for Friday, November 3 at 7:30 p.m. in First United Methodist Church (6 E. Wright St., Pensacola).

The sixty-voice volunteer chorus will perform music with its roots in Spain and Latin America, conducted by its artistic director Xiaolun Chen, who is celebrating his twentieth anniversary with the ensemble. The major works on the program are the Misa Criolla of Ariel Ramirez, a setting of the mass incorporating Argentinian folk styles, and Romancero Gitano (Gypsy Ballads), Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s setting of nine poems by Federico Garcia Lorca for chorus and guitar.

The Society welcomes a number of special guests for this concert: Pensacola Opera Artists in Residence Eric Dean Wassenaar, who will serve as the tenor soloist in the Misa Criolla, and Evelyn Saavedra, who will perform Manuel de Falla’s Seven Spanish Folk Songs with pianist Cody Martin, as well as the Pensacola Guitar Orchestra (director, Dr. Joe Stallings) and musicians from Pensacola State College.

The concert is funded, in part, by a generous grant from Foo Foo Fest, with additional sponsorship from Blues Angel Music and La Costa Latina Newspaper. Tickets are $20 and $25 and are available at Eventbrite.com, by phoning 850-484-1806, and at the door.

Subscriptions are still available for the Society’s entire season. Following Musica Hispanica, the

group will present its annual performance of Handel’s Messiah on December 2 and a program of works by women, Her Song on April 21, 2018.

For further information, contact Charlie Smoke: charlie@choralsocietyofpensacola.org or